Grown Up Rap

Meet the genius bringing you Meow the Jewels

The name Sly Jones probably doesn’t mean that much to you, but he’s the part genius, part madman who worked hard as hell to make Meow the Jewels a reality. He recently got to hook up with El-P and Killer Mike before their show in his hometown of Phoenix, and broke down how the project came about.

Bored one night on Twitter, he read El-P’s tweet about remaking Run the Jewels 2 with cat sounds, and took it upon himself to take it seriously. It’s shit like this that the internet was invented for, and we can’t wait to hear how it turns out.

Considering how money from the project is going to the families of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and the fight against Police brutality, Run the Jewels take time in the interview to remind us that this whole crazy project also has a serious side, and will hopefully help to raise the profile of the issues at stake.

Watch the clip below, including shots of Sly Jones joining the group on stage – surely the ultimate experience for any music fan.

RTJ2 is out now on Mass Appeal. Read our review here.

Watch DJ Premier and Royce Da 5’9″ documentary Raiders of the Lost Art

Raiders of the Lost Art is a documentary about Royce Da 5’9″ and DJ Premier’s new group PRhyme, and its pretty damn good. Short but sweet, Part 1 gives us an interview with Primo, talking about how he first got noticed in NYC all those years ago with Guru, and about how he’ll never stop making that boom bap sound, no matter what the younger generation is doing.

Hearing that alone is worth it for us Preem fiends. But even more special are the parts with Royce. He opens up about his alcohol abuse and the effects it had on his kids, including a scene where his shows how his car won’t even start until he’s taken a breath test.

Its a rare insight into the real life of a rapper, far from the fake lifestyle we’ve come to know from so many flashy videos. We see Royce spending precious time with his wife and kids, making sure he doesnt pull into his driveway too fast, and telling his young daughter to go back inside to get a jacket. There’s no posturing and no ego, just a man who works hard to give his children a life that he never had.

Of course, the flick is also part of the promotion trail for the upcoming PRhyme album, which hits stores next month. It’s safe to say we are excited as fuck, and you should be too. Watch Part 1 of Raiders of the Lost Art below, and keep them eyes peeled for the next installment coming soon.

We salute Tyler, the Creator for crying like a baby

We’ve all seen that clip of Tyler, The Creator crying at the sight of N.E.R.D. on stage (haven’t seen it? Wake the fuck up), and how star-struck he was in a recent interview with Pharrell.

Funny shit, but at least the guy clearly has some genuine passion for the music and its biggest stars.

In a music fueled by egos and trash talk, its all too rare for a young hip-hop artist to show mutual respect for their peers. Its even common now to hear modern rappers talk about how they don’t even listen to rap at all, not even hiding how they are in the game solely to get money.

Compare this to the veterans and older artists and its a completely different story. They have no trouble shining a light on others, and acknowledging the history of the music. Take Run the Jewels, currently the hottest property in the game. El-P and Mike not only have a detailed knowledge of hip-hop, but also have no issue singing the praises of the legends and other artists. Same goes for Common, Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch and others. As for the legends themselves, like DJ Premier, they are forever paying respect to others and the masters of genre.

Its perhaps unfair to say all young artists are ignorant to other rappers (Freddie Gibbs frequently points to Drake as being the best there currently is, as contentious as that may be), but a little acknowledgment that they at least like hip-hop and appreciate others would be nice.

Tyler himself has stated he doesnt intent to make hip-hop for much longer, but this is still a man with a deep-rooted respect for the music. And for that, despite all the other crazy and stupid shit he does, we salute him. It was his party, and he can cry if he wants to.

Why Aloe Blacc getting ripped off is no big surprise

Former Stones Throw artist and chart-topper Aloe Blacc recently announced that he has only earned $4,000 from Pandora streams of his monster hit Wake Me Up (with Avicii), despite clocking up an incredible 168 million plays in the US.

A shocking revelation, but is anyone really that surprised? The game changed beyond all recognition years ago, and the plates have shifted again several times since, each time leaving the artist with little to show for their efforts.

Gone are the days when a musician could sell millions of CDs and make big bucks. Save for the occasional exception, like Taylor Swift, who recently shipped well over a million copies of her latest album 1989, sales ain’t what they used to be.

What’s interesting in relation to hip-hop is how all that big talk about sales figures that dominated headlines a few years ago has all but disappeared.

As a music built upon bragging rites and proving you are the best, there was a time when commercial artists like 50 Cent were obsessed with sales numbers, making them as much of a badge of honor as the amount of times he’d been shot.

If a big release didn’t ship more than a good few hundred thousand right away you were done, and your rivals would tell you so. Nowadays though, no one is moving units, not even Em, Pimp Juice or Rocafella, as Jay-Z once famously said (sort of).

Everyone knows the big money is now to be made from touring, where eye-watering prices can be charged for a show that, lets be honest, usually sucks.

But it would be hard for a rapper to deny that still being able to make big money from sales would be nice, especially when facing the necessary tough grind that comes with traveling around the world on tour.

New ways of getting music to us are appearing all the time, and as always hip-hop is at the cutting edge. From the biggest albums to the humblest of indy material, most work is now available for stream before release. Run the Jewels even gave away RTJ2 for free, following in the footsteps of U2 and others.

It remains to be seen if the industry will ever find a way to get those sales revenues back up, but whats certain is that a rapper will need to be pretty damn successful to get anywhere even close to that Taylor Swift money.

Rare old video of MF Doom way before the mask

Images of MF Doom without the mask on are rare. Dig around YouTube and you’ll find some of those old KMD videos with him in, back when he was known as Zed Love X. Since then though, clear shots of the man with the government name Daniel Dumile have been hard to come by.

Look closely at the Viktor Vaughn Mr Clean video and you do catch some glimpses, but these are obscured by the animation. It all adds to the mystique of course, and its one of the things we love most about the mythical Metal Face Doom.

A little insight is nice once in a while though, which makes this little gem of a video doing the rounds yesterday a bit special. Its from 1991, where a fresh-faced 19 year old Zed Love X addresses congress peeps about Rock the Vote and other initiatives to get young people voting.

It’s interesting to hear him drop knowledge, but even more fascinating when you remember this is the same man that has gone on to give us so much good music since. Watch the clip here:

http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4513596

Read our review of NehruvianDOOM here.

Listen to new music from Ras Kass & Apollo Brown, Domo Genesis, M.O.P. and Run the Jewels

Here’s our weekly round-up of the best new music from the past week:

Ras Kass and Apollo Brown came back strong with another track from their upcoming Blasphemy album, out this Monday. Peep How to Kill God below.

Odd Future affiliate Domo Genesis blessed us with Strictly4MyN*ggaz, from his Under the Influence 2 mixtape. Check it here:

Billy Danze and Lil Fame returned with a new M.O.P. banger, bringing Busta Ryhmes along for the ride too. The track is taken from their new Street Certified EP, and you can hear it below.

Last but by no means least, Run the Jewels gave everyone a treat by releasing Run the Jewels 2 early and for free. Destined to be a classic, and soon to be remixed as Meow the Jewels, you can get it from here now: http://www.runthejewels.net/

Time is Illmatic: Documenting Hip-hop the correct way

For those of us 30 and over, the first thing that hits you when you realize Illmatic came out 20 years ago is how it makes you feel old as shit. There are millions of rap fans around the world who weren’t even born in 1994, and they almost definitely wont be familiar with the Wild Style clips that start the album off.

The second thing that hits you is just how much hip-hop has changed in those 20 years, mostly for the good. It’s a genre still much maligned and misunderstood by the masses, but its also finally now at a point where it is legitimately recognized for its cultural impact and long history. And where there is history, there are always people ready to capture and preserve it. That’s why, in the years since Illmatic dropped, a small but incredible collection of documentary films have been made about hip-hop.

To be clear on our definitions, when we say hip-hop documentary, we aren’t talking about promotional tie-in DVDs like Backstage, or extended video/live flicks like Streets is Watching or Up in Smoke.

We mean well-crafted cinematic productions that get the attention of respected critics and film festival judges. Films like Scratch (Doug Pray, 2002), Michael Rapaport’s Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (2012), My Vinyl Weighs a Ton: This is Stones Throw Records (Jeff Broadway, 2014), and The Wonder Year and The Hip-Hop Fellow (Kenneth Price, 2011, 2014), both of which document the work of 9th Wonder. Each tells the story of hip-hop culture in a way that not only appeals to the true fan, but also makes the stories accessible to those from outside of the movement.

The latest documentary in this category to hit screens is Time is Illmatic, released to coincide with the album’s 20th anniversary. For those in the know, 1994 was slap-bang in the middle of the 2nd golden era of hip-hop, a time when quality material was being released by a huge selection of artists. But it was also a time when New York was in crisis, at the tail-end of the crack epidemic, and with murder rates among young black males way too high.

Time is Illmatic is less then about the music, and more about the social, economic and political climate of Queensbridge and every other ghetto at the time. It covers at length the break-up of Nas’ parents, and the effect it had on both Nas and his brother (Bravehearts rapper Jungle).

The tragic death of Ill Will is also a main theme. Anyone familiar with Nas’ music since Illmatic knows how frequently Will’s name appears, but here the true impact of his death is finally made clear. There are points where Nas struggles to re-live the pain of the story, and a poignant moment where Jungle questions his mother for not having moved them away from Queensbridge the moment one of her sons best friends was shot dead.

From a cinematic perspective, its a well-written and directed piece of film making, respectful of the culture, while never shying away from it’s many contradictions and problems.

For historians of the music itself, there are some interesting snippets of detail about how the album came together, with interviews from MC Serch, Large Professor, Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Q-Tip. There’s even a section on the infamous Bridge Wars, highlighting how significant the battle was for those who came from Queens and the Bronx.

It makes for a worthy addition to the cannon of other impressive hip-hop documentary films, and does well to capture a moment in history that effected the lives of so many people around the world.

Time is Illmatic is out now. Check the website for screenings.

Freddie Gibbs and Madlib Knicks remix, feat. Action Bronson and Joey Bada$$

Madlib and Freddie Gibbs recently announced a new EP of remixes from their already-certified-classic Piñata. The internet predictably lost it’s shit, and we can understand why.

A couple of tracks have already surfaced from the project, the standout being a remix of Knicks, featuring none other than Flushing’s finest chef Action Bronson, and the always-impressive Joey Bada$$.

The other track is Home, featuring new verses from Gangster Gibbs, plus a guest spot from BJ the Chicago Kid. It was available online, but has recently been pulled.

The Gibbs and Madlib Kicks Remix EP will be released November 18. No word yet on exactly when the much-anticipated full length debuts from Joey Bada$$ and Action Bronson will arrive.

Album review: NehruvianDoom. Good, but should have been better.

Few artists have released as many consistently great albums as MF Doom. Partner him up with one of the most gifted rappers of the new generation, and this could have been a classic in the making.

Sadly, it isn’t. NehruvianDoom is a very good album, but never quite lives up to the promise. The biggest problem is Metal Fingers himself, or more specifically, the lack of him. He’s absent on all but four tracks, and Om only has him doing the hook. To be told we are getting a new project by one of the most skillful artists of all time, to then find he’s not on every track is frustrating, especially when the album has been packaged with the same mashed-up naming convention as MF’s other great collaborations (GhostDoom, DangerDoom, JJ Doom, Madvillian).

When he does feature though, he’s on point as ever, effortlessly dropping gems like “A game winning strategy/support your favorite charity/playing with polarity could drain a whole battery”. He also produces every beat, and there’s little to fault here either. He can even still just about get away with having long skits.

As for Bishop Nehru, it’s the perfect showcase for a talented emcee that seems to grow in confidence and skill each outing. There’s no denying the kid has a bright future, although his lyrics can start to wear thin over the course of a full album, even one as short as this (NehruvianDoom is just 10 songs deep, weighing in at a slender 36 minutes).

It’s by far the best thing Nehru has achieved in his short career, and will help keep him at least a tiny bit rooted to the underground scene when the inevitable major league debut comes.

For MF Doom, its falls some distance from the quality we got with Madvillian, Viktor Vaughn and other Dumile classics, but still a better album than most other artists are capable of. As an elder statesmen of the game, it’s refreshing to see Doom passing the baton to the young Nehru. Fingers crossed he doesn’t go and drop it.

NehruvianDoom is out now, on Lex Records.

Why Meow the Jewels is more than just a gimmick

Writing about an album made from cat sounds probably isn’t the best way to start a new hip-hop blog, but fuck it. Cats and hip-hop go way back anyway. Just ask Naughty by Nature. And even today, Tyler, the Creator can’t get enough of Photoshopped felines.

Now though, with the Meow the Jewels Kickstarter hitting its funding goal with days to spare, that rap and cat relationship is about to be taken to a whole new level. What started out as a joke is happening for real, and it looks set to go down in rap history as either the dumbest album ever conceived, or one of the most brilliant.

It began a few months back, when Run the Jewels (aka El-P and Killer Mike) announced there would be a special ‘remix’ edition of their new album RTJ2, recorded using the sounds of cats. With a price tag of a modest $40K, it was taken as nothing more than joke, and a nice little pop-shot at the drama surrounding that not-so secret one-off Wu-Tang Clan album.

One fan took it to heart though, and set about making sure the remix album came out for real. The Kickstarter appeal to raise the $40K soon got the backing of Run the Jewels itself, with El-P stating that his slice of the crowd-funded cash would get donated to the families of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

Before long the campaign had caught the attention of the hip-hop world and beyond, with some of the biggest names in the game pledging to work on the album, including Dan the Automator, Prince Paul, Just Blaze and Alchemist.

Who knows what the project will actually sound like, but the end result is less important than the journey towards it. Musically, hip-hop has never been shy to blur reality with fiction, from the mostly made-up violence of classic gangster raps, to the stories told by the alter egos of artists like Ghostface Killah, MF Doom and Quasimoto. It’s also a genre well-versed in crossing over to the weird side, even something as weird as making beats from cat noises.

But Meow The Jewels could also end up having a deeper meaning beyond the music. A project as crazy as this will always cross-over into mainstream news media, helping introduce Run the Jewels to a wider audience, which in turn is good for independent hip-hop as a whole.

It’s the charitable donation and connection with the situation in Ferguson that is key though. Hip-hop has always had a serious image problem to the outsiders that don’t understand it. Many of those same people have also likely struggled to keep track of the full extent of the aftermath and fallout from the deaths of Garner and Brown. But with rappers having been reporting from the front line, especially artists like Talib Kweli and Run the Jewels’ own Killer Mike, the true scale of the issue has been getting through loud and clear not just to their fans, but further afield thanks to news outlets and social media.

El-P’s Meow the Jewels donations will only help to further raise the profile of hip-hop as a creative movement with enough power to make a difference, which puts the whole project way above the status of cheesy gimmick. If we end up getting some decent music out of it too, that’s merely a bonus.

It’s unclear when Meow the Jewels will drop, but peep the trailer below in the meantime. RTJ2 is released later this month.